Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Belarusian President Lukashenka: Heaven forbid us from Ukrainian scenarios. Democracy is when and where it’s the people that live decently, and not a bunch of those ‘great opposition activists’ whom you just mentioned. So one should take it easy — the way I take it easy. A dictator? Fine, a dictator. There’s a certain benefit to it, tough: the last one — can you imagine? — the last one! Had you not come here, where in your life would you have met him and talked to him?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

So she picks Ukraine’s Paralympic score — #4 in the world — and starts waving it in front of the Russian bear. At least, that’s how she wants to be perceived:

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: Ukraine was at her best, and the victory over Russia was also stellar. We thank you very much for your victory, guys!

Still, actions speak louder than words. BYuT recently co-sponsored a bill that requires civil servants to be proficient in Russian, thus cementing decades of Russification from which Ukraine has not yet fully recovered. Two BYuT dissenters, MPs Andriy Shevchenko and Yevhen Suslov, have made a motion to strike out the requirement.

Meanwhile, the Party of Regions has announced a temporary halt in its coalition talks with BYuT until former Orange coalition partners sort things out.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Here’s a quote from a guy who couches the mechanics of coalition-building in obstetric and medieval terms.

MP Mykhailo Chechetov, PRU: There’s a…a fo-fo-folktale that if a woman is expecting, then, until she gives birth to a child, she doesn’t buy…she doesn’t even buy diapers, right? Once the child is born, only then does she start buying everything — not to spoil things. Here’s the same case: If we give birth to this healthy and good child — to the so-called “new coalition format” — then it will be possible to talk about how the negotiations went, write memoirs, and so on.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Yushchenko, who accused Tymoshenko of shedding crocodile tears, seems to be unaware of his own crocodile tears.

President Yushchenko: Talks between Tymoshenko, the Communists, and the Party of Regions are not going smoothly not because it’s hard for them to agree, but because there’s one problem: There’s no societal acceptance for such an alliance. That’s what ails them. And that’s why there are blueprints for how to split someone from Nasha Ukrayina, for how to split someone from [the] Lytvyn [Bloc]. In other words, there needs to be façade to show that the democratic process is not a lost cause.

Well, well, well, Mr. President. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Is there enough societal acceptance for your PoRNUNS dreamboat and that dirty little United Center splinter group of yours?

Ambassador Chernomyrdin: Now, whatever the occasion, whatever the occasion, there’s always the "pro-Kremlin hand." Why are they messing with those hands? What’s bothering them? What is it they find missing? We’re not extending no hands nowhere. We’re extending them with good intentions only…and with help, including help for Ukraine. During hard times, we’ll always extend...what’s necessary, and will deliver.

We Russia are working with heads of state. Yushchenko got elected, we worked with Viktor Andreyevich* — we’re still working. Whoever gets elected in the next election, we’ll work with them. And as for who we hold dear to our hearts, or who we hold dear below our hearts, it’s a different story.

*patronymic transliterated from Russian

Is he talking about hands or some other private parts? I, for one, have detected phallic allusions in his humor.

With that hand-below-heart anatomy class, I think he did a great job at Kremlinizing some of our already well-PoRnified female presidential hopefuls. Russian diplomats can be so open-hearted!

Monday, September 22, 2008

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: The government and I as Prime Minister — we do not belong to a herd of sheep where there’s a custom that if one sheep jumps off the cliff, the rest will jump off the cliff, too. We will not jump off the cliff and instead will maintain the country’s stabilnist at a very high level.

Acting Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk: I’m not a big scholar of zoology, but as far as I know, sheep don’t jump off the cliff. If they are going somewhere, they follow the paths that the herd uses to pass and bypass one cliff or another. There’s a good proverb: They say that the halo looks very good on the Devil’s horns. I think it’s a principle that Ukrainians don’t share. We should be honest and candid. If a decision was made regarding the coalition’s disbandment, we should carry this issue to its logical conclusion, perhaps form a new coalition and follow a new process, including cabinet appointments.

When Yatsenyuk stepped down as Speaker in the aftermath of the Orange coalition’s collapse, he hardly expected a chain reaction of resignations.

The last person to resign is Tymoshenko. Faced with a dilemma, she sticks to her guns, unsure what to do: (a) Jump in bed with the Party of Regions (aka “abduction by aliens”) and lose many voters, or (b) agree to a snap election and lose her PM job.

So there she is: the champion of stabilnist, the enemy of the herd mentality — all dressed up and nowhere to go.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Narrator: The crew at missile cruiser Moskva is paraded on deck for a roll call. It’s not the first time that the flag-raising ceremony is being by shot by TV cameras, but it’s the first time that the flagship has allowed aboard so many foreign reporters representing major news agencies, newspapers and broadcasters.

Kristof Wanner, DW: We’re interested in how dangerous the situation here in Crimea is. We just took a look at the way things are and want to understand how much…and what the sentiment and the situation is in general here in this city, and how the people feel.

Alexandra Shatzka, CBC: We saw here in Sevastopol that it is a Russian city — in Ukraine, of course. What happens next I don’t know. How will it be possible for Ukraine…uh…to join NATO when here is the chief port of the Russian Black See Fleet.

Commanding officer: Raise the flag!

What a relief this delegation of Moscow-based correspondents, so fluent in Russian, found no Hitler dolls in Sevastopol! Perhaps they should’ve been looking for Stalin dolls.

As for the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the lease expires in 2017. And by the way, one can find examples of even more complicated coexistence.

America operates a naval base in the Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Cyprus has been an apple of discord between Greece and Turkey, both NATO countries. Both places have their problems, but the modus vivendi does work.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

At today's session of the Verkhovna Rada, Speaker Arseniy Yatsenyuk said this: "I officially pronounce the disbandment of the coalition of democratic forces in the Verkhovna Rada, created by NUNS and BYuT on November 29, 2007, period."

"Anybody want to observe a moment of silence? Okay, let's skip this part," Yatsenyuk quipped. He then added:

Today is the day we turn a page of Ukraine's political history and open a new one. I wouldn't call this a political apocalypse. Yes, it's yet another challenge for democracy, but I hope that, together, we'll meet this challenge, too. It's not a case when they didn't let us. It's a case when we didn't make it and didn't succeed.

The end of the Orange Coalition marks the beginning of a 30-day interregnum during which the parties represented in Parliament should form a new coalition. Failure to form a coalition gives the President the right to disband Parliament

Monday, September 15, 2008

Sparks are flying in the Orange coalition endgame — sparks of Kuchmism.

With the nasty fight getting nastier and the country holding its breath in disgust, the Ukrainian media draws parallels between today’s crisis and pre-Orange Ukraine. Here's a small glossary:

Adminresurs refers to the autocratic use of government resources (local authorities, law enforcement, state-run media, etc) for campaign purposes;

Astroturfing refers to the public relations technique (popular in the USSR and the US) of imitating grassroots support for a political party/politician.

And here’s a short battlefield report:Last week, United Center, the pro-Yushchenko loyalists, rounded up college students and public employees in Zakarpattya oblast for an anti-Tymoshenko human chain rally along the highway. Watch footage of the event.

Meanwhile, friends of Tymoshenko have plastered the Cabinet’s Web site with a plethora of rave reviews from "ordinary Ukrainians" containing boilerplate language from the Kuchma era. (H/t Ukrayinska Pravda)

According to some sources, the Lytvyn Bloc has agreed to join the coalition in a last bid to reunite the Orange camp and stave off a snap election that may throw the fence-sitting LB back to wilderness. The reports have yet to be confirmed.

Most experts believe that Tuesday’s session of the Verkhovna Rada will see the final collapse of the Orange tandem and the creation of a PRU-BYuT coalition.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Not that I’m a big fan of Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter), but I do like this one. Watch the most "uncut" version of Sarah Palin's ABC News interview, as it relates to Ukraine, with the full transcript below.

GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?

PALIN: They're our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.

GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they're doing in Georgia?

PALIN: Well, I'm giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

Sarah Palin on Russia:

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We've learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

As a Ukrainian living next door to Russia, that’s the U.S. foreign policy I prefer, given the key role that the Clinton administration played in stripping my country of its nuclear deterrent.

Of course, I do know about the Christian fundamentalism of U.S. conservatives, just as I know about the Russophile pacifism of U.S. liberals. Both worldviews spell disaster. Now, isn't it funny how most YouTube videos omit the part where Palin emphasizes the need not to repeat the Cold War and mentions the Orange Revolution?

Could it be that Bush’s cowboy interventionism has slapped some childish isolationism into U.S. liberals, making democratic movements like the Orange Revolution an inconvenient truth? Oh, I forgot. It was all a “neocon CIA plot!”

With my country stuck between an expansionist Russia and a split West, I want a U.S. President who is neither too hard nor too soft on Russia.

As of today, most Ukrainians, and Russified Ukrainians especially, know little about NATO other than what they learned in Soviet history textbooks. Naturally, they do not want Ukraine to join NATO. Ironically, they do want Ukraine to join the EU.

Since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, joining NATO has become a prerequisite — the prerequisite — for joining the EU. No Eastern European country has become an EU member without first becoming a NATO member.

I believe that Ukraine’s nonalignment puts us in the danger zone. I want Ukraine to join NATO and, ultimately, the EU while remaining a good neighbor of Russia, not a good banana republic of Russia.

Therefore, either Ukraine will join NATO, or the Kremlin will be tempted to repeat the Georgian scenario in eastern Ukraine. It’s as simple as that, Uncle Sam.

In the first case, you’ll get a 45-million country with a defense industry unmatched by any other fresh NATO member country. In the second case, you’ll get a conflict rivaling the war in Yugoslavia, plus millions of refugees and a major spike in your defense budget.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

PM Yulia Tymoshenko: Greetings, dear Luhansk! It goes to show, once again, that one cannot walk on high heels. They warned me many times, but what's done is done. Dear friends, I'm very glad to address you on this holiday. Half the cabinet came here today to thank you for what you...

Sunday, September 07, 2008

As Ukraine verges on the brink of a snap parliamentary election, political advertising starts springing to life again. Well, in some cases, it never stopped.

In a bid to “keep up with the Yushchenkos,” stabilnist daddy Yanukovych courts Ukrainian youths with a verse from the Ukrainian national anthem: “Upon us, fellow Ukrainians, fate shall smile once more!”

So far, fate has smiled on the offspring of Yanukovych and Yushchenko more generously that it has smiled on ordinary Ukrainian youths.

Ironically, the copy's bucolic setting adds insult to injury because young Ukrainians living in the countryside grapple with the worst job market. Unless, of course, they take their chances with labor migration and find dangerous work in Russia or the EU, as millions of Ukrainians have done.

Finally, Yanukovych often rhetorically contrasts Ukraine’s “industrial East” with the “agricultural West.” In the latter, he sees "free riders and foes," in the former "friends and worker bees."

Friday, September 05, 2008

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday arrived to Kyiv on a cheerleading tour that has already taken him to Georgia and Azerbaijan and will end in Italy.

A staunch supporter of NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia, Cheney enjoyed a warm reception from like-minded Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Security and energy dominated the meeting agenda.

Cheney also held talks with PM Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of BYuT, whose parliamentary coalition with Yushchenko’s NUNS appears to have collapsed after he accused her of pro-Russian conspiracy and she crossed coalition lines to pass legislation trimming his powers.

Undoubtedly, the outgoing Bush administration wants to send a welcome message to Kyiv.

But given the lame-duck status of both Cheney and Yushchenko, Ukraine’s accession into NATO hinges on the outcome of the presidential election in America no less than it does on Ukraine’s own presidential election in 2010.

Besides, the collapse of the ruling Orange coalition, unless reversed, will probably lead to snap parliamentary elections within weeks.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Allegations of Tymoshenko’s treason have materialized. At least, that’s how NUNS, the spurned party, may think. On Tuesday, the Orange Coalition failed to pass a resolution on Georgia, and instead saw an ad hoc alliance between BYuT, the Party of Regions, and the Communist Party. The three joined forces to simplify the impeachment procedure and strip President Yushchenko of key prerogatives.

Orchestrated by PM Tymoshenko of BYuT, the move may outbitch President Yushchenko’s own not-so-secret ambition: a grand coalition between his loyalists and a PRU splinter group — his reelection elixir.

If so, it marks the coming out of the closet for a love and hate triangle in which BYuT and NUNS, perpetually on the verge of divorce, always gave the Party of Regions the glad eye.

That gives us the following Kodak moment of the battleground: Tymoshenko, BYuT, Medvedchuk, and the majority of the PRU, and the Communists on one side, and Yushchenko, NUNS, Baloha, and Chernovetsky on the other. The angels must be weeping at the sight of such “pragmatic” matches made in…Hollywood!

In this divine comedy, Kuchma's chief of staff Medvedchuk plays the “missing link” role connecting Immaculate Tymoshenko and the infernal forces of the Kremlin, as many evolution theorists believe. Lyubov Sliska, Vice Speaker of the Russian Duma, has praised Tymoshenko’s evolution, saying that if she stays the course, she will become president. What a heartbreaker for silly fools like me who supported her in parliamentary elections.

BYuT claims it “sees no alternative to the Orange Coalition.” Echoing this love ballad, some optimists dismiss yesterday’s vote as a one-night stand, noting the fact that unholy alliances in the Rada featuring Tymoshenko have appeared before.

Meanwhile, that same night, NUNS held an emergency meeting and decided to pull out of the Orange Coalition. The decision will take effect 11 days after it was made.

With the notable exception of Interior Minister Lutsenko, Cabinet ministers representing NUNS did not attend the Wednesday meeting of the Cabinet. Lutsenko blames the crisis on Baloha’s brinkmanship and believes that the only way to save the Coalition is to fire Baloha, Yushchenko’s chief of staff.

As NUNS and BYuT exchanged recriminations, Yushchenko came to the Rada to announce that a de facto coalition has been formed between BYuT, the Party of Regions, and the Communist Party. He accused Tymoshenko of setting up a dictatorship and gave the Verkhovna Rada 30 days to finalize the freshly minted coalition or face dissolution.

In a UP article on the BYuT-PRU-CPU hookup, Serhiy Leshchenko and Mustafa Nayem quote a BYuT MP who calls it “safe sex.” Safe for whom? It may be safe for prima domina Tymoshenko, but is it safe for Ukraine?

Monday, September 01, 2008

Emboldened by his reelection in May, Kyiv Mayor Leonid “Kosmos” Chernovetky has authored a book titled Confessions of a Mayor.

Kyiv Mayor Chernovetsky: I’m a living history of everything that’s been going on in Ukraine. It’s not even a book, it’s just a foreword. And if the book sells well, I will sit down and, in a matter of a few days, will write another one. Actually, I’m quite prolific, I must tell you. My every deed — including the fact that I’m here and talking — is wise. I’m watching your eyes. You’re thoroughly impressed by what I’m saying, right?

Given Chernovetsky’s lack of verbal gravity, the masterpiece appears to have been ghostwritten by extraterrestrials. His attachment to President Yushchenko — who recently awarded him with the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise of the Fifth Degree (for fending off Tymoshenko?) — has been the talk of town.